Articles

• 28-May-2020 - Misusing HTML Entities

  How do you write a non-breaking space in JavaScript or JSON?

• 19-May-2020 - Pandigital Polydivisible Numbers

  I recently read the excellent Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker. In the second chapter he discusses his attempt to find pandigital polydivisible numbers in different bases. I decided to pick up where he left off.

• 28-Apr-2020 - JSON and Lisp-Like Queries

  How can we express data queries using JSON? There are plenty of options but by borrowing a few ideas from Lisp we can create a simple, powerful syntax that's also convenient to use.

• 14-Apr-2020 - CORS FAQ

  I've written an FAQ for CORS (cross-origin resource sharing). It's at https://cors-errors.info/faq.

• 17-Jan-2014 - HTML and ExtJS Components

  If you have a background in creating websites with raw HTML then it's only a matter of time before you'll find yourself drowning in ExtJS components, knowing exactly what HTML you'd like to use but having absolutely no idea how to get ExtJS to create it. In this article we'll cover the main techniques at your disposal and attempt to answer the question: “How do I create some simple HTML with an ExtJS component?”.

• 26-Dec-2012 - ExtJS ComboBoxes – Part 3

  Customizing the fields of a combobox can often prove problematic. The valueField configuration option, in particular, adds a lot of extra complexity and yet in the majority of cases its use is totally unnecessary. However, when it's used correctly, it can greatly enhance the power of a combobox to represent more sophisticated data in an intuitive way.

• 28-Oct-2012 - Custom Proxies

  One of the first things I do when I start work on a new ExtJS application is to write an application-specific proxy. It's a powerful technique and one I'd highly encourage anyone working with ExtJS to adopt. Here I try to introduce the core concept and then demonstrate some of the more reusable patterns that I've found useful in my own custom proxies.

• 29-Jan-2012 - Styling ExtJS Grid Cells

  Styling grid cells is a common topic for help requests on the Sencha forums. There are a number of techniques available depending on exactly what styling should be applied where. This article introduces the most widely-used of these techniques along with some of the theory behind how they work.

• 22-Dec-2011 - Config Objects on the Prototype

  One of my favourite changes moving from ExtJS 3 to ExtJS 4 is that many more config settings can be specified on a class's prototype. In ExtJS 3 it was often necessary to resort to using an initComponent method to specify any settings that used reference types but in ExtJS 4 these can almost all be specified directly on the class. This change seems to have gone largely unnoticed yet many developers are taking advantage without realizing it.

• 29-Nov-2011 - ExtJS ComboBoxes – Part 2

  ComboBoxes are fully integrated with the ExtJS data package, allowing them to be bound to a data store containing the values to show in the drop-down list. Whilst this brings a number of benefits it is also one of the biggest sources of configuration mistakes. In the second article in this series I'll attempt to unravel the complexities of configuring a combobox with a store.

• 02-Nov-2011 - ExtJS ComboBoxes – Part 1

  ComboBoxes are one of the most popular components in any UI toolkit and the ExtJS combobox is no exception. However, the flexibility offered by a combobox comes at the expense of having to navigate through a minefield of configuration options. In the first article in this series I'll attempt to introduce some of the basics.

• 01-Aug-2011 - Selected Text In An IFrame

  A recent post on the Sencha forums asked how to access the selected text within an inline frame (IFrame). Though the answer appears quite straightforward it is actually a little tricky to pick a route through the potential pitfalls to find an implementation that works with all major browsers.